An Indigenous woman has died in a car crash involving police in Darwin, in what is being treated as a death in custody.
The woman was a passenger in a Hyundai Hatchback which crashed into another car after allegedly running through a red light at an intersection in Darwin at about 2.30am on Sunday. According to reports, the car was being chased by Northern Territory police.
Emergency services attempted CPR on the woman following the crash but she died at the scene. Three other people also in the same car were taken to Royal Darwin Hospital.
Detective Superintendent Peter Kennon said the woman’s death is being treated as a death in custody.
“This is a tragic incident for all involved,” Detective Superintendent Kennon said in a statement.
On Twitter, Senator Lidia Thorpe wrote: “More heartbreak. More Anger. Sending love to the family and community of the woman killed in this police chase.”
“8 First Nations deaths in custody since the start of March. We will keep fighting for justice and peace.”
More heartbreak. More anger. 💔 Sending love to the family and community of the woman killed in this police chase.
— Senator Lidia Thorpe (@lidia__thorpe) May 16, 2021
8 First Nations deaths in custody since the start of March. We will keep fighting for justice and peace.https://t.co/OoAGtPxCUP
The woman who died in Darwin is the eighth Indigenous person to have died in custody in Australia since the beginning of March.
On April 27, a 37-year-old man was found dead in his cell at Cessnock Correctional Centre in the NSW Hunter Valley. This death was just one day after a man died during a medical episode at Port Phillip Prison in Melbourne.
In March, a man and woman died in separate in NSW prisons and a man died at Victoria’s Ravenhall Correctional Centre. On March 18, Barkindji man Anzac Sullivan, aged 37, died during a police pursuit in Broken Hill, NSW, and a 45-year-old man died while in medical care in Western Australia.
It’s been more than 30 years since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which made over 399 recommendations to address the situation. More than 470 Indigenous people have died in custody since the report was handed down, with eight Indigenous people dying in custody since March this year alone.
This latest death comes as an inquest into the death of Wayne Fella Morrison in 2016 is underway in South Australia. He died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital three days after being taken out of a prison transport van at Yatala Labour Prison in September 2016. He had been restrained in handcuffs, ankle flexi-cuffs and a spit mask and was placed face down in the back of the van. When he was removed from the van, he was non-responsive.
The Department of Correctional Services did not provide Morrison’s family with information about his condition or whereabouts after he had been taken to hospital.
Last week, the court heard evidence that a guard involved in the restraint and transport of Wayne Fella Morrison left the prison to attend a pre-planned trip to a football match, despite an ongoing investigation into the incident.